


My Soul is Divided not into Halves but into Thirds

by captain_britain



Series: God, Mortal, and the Boy Who Was Both [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Green Lantern - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Amnesia, Author has smashed the DC and Marvel Universes together with little regard for canon, Explicit tag for later chapters, Jason Todd’s mouth, M/M, getting together fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-08-06 03:16:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16380371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captain_britain/pseuds/captain_britain
Summary: Jason Todd often has bad ideas. The most recent bad idea was probably bringing the most wanted man in the world, Bucky Barnes, home to his boyfriend, Kyle Rayner. Kyle agrees to help the Winter Soldier, but there is no way that this ends well for anyone involved, right?





	My Soul is Divided not into Halves but into Thirds

The sound of the front door opening in the wee hours of the morning never failed to wake Kyle up, even though most of the time it was just Jason coming back from patrol. On the rare occasion that it wasn’t Jason, it was usually one of the other Bats looking for supplies, and Kyle could usually recognize their footsteps before he did anything rash. This morning, however, Kyle didn’t recognize the footsteps that followed Jason’s into the townhouse. There was a hushed voice that Kyle, being still mostly asleep couldn’t make out, and then the sound of Jason climbing the stairs. The bedroom door creaked open at the same time that Kyle was pushing himself up on his elbows and shaking his hair out of his face. 

“Kyle?” Jason’s head appeared around the edge of the door. “I need you to come downstairs.”

“Why?” Kyle’s voice was still raspy with sleep and he cleared his throat before continuing. “What’s wrong?”

Jason was already gone. Kyle could hear him on the stairs talking to whoever was on the first floor. 

Kyle heaved himself out of bed, grabbed a pair of boxers off the floor at random, not caring whether they were his or Jason’s, and scrubbed a hand through his hair in a half hearted attempt to make himself look presentable. According to the mirror over the dresser, he failed miserably.

Fuck it, Kyle thought. If this person was going to turn up at his house at — good god, three in the morning — then they could deal with him looking disheveled. His footsteps were heavy as he plodded down the stairs to the connected living room and kitchen. “Jason, what’s going on? It’s three in the morning and-”

Kyle froze in the kitchen doorway. Sitting at his kitchen table was the most wanted man in the world. 

The Winter Soldier.

* * *

Kyle hadn’t been on Earth when the business with SHIELD and Hydra went down. There had been a civil war in Sector 2957, and the Earth Lanterns had been drafted to help keep the chaos from spreading to neighboring sectors. When he finally got back Washington DC was in ruins, and the entire world was looking for one man. The Winter Soldier. Kyle had seen the footage of the helicarriers falling out of the sky. He had seen the news stories and read the stories from eye witnesses about the man with the metal arm who had not only destroyed a Washington highway but also gone head to head with Captain America and arguably come out in better shape than the Captain.

That had been six months ago, and now the Winter Soldier was sitting at Kyle’s paint stained kitchen table staring at him through a tangled and dirty curtain of brown hair. The soldier’s grey eyes studied Kyle with interest for a moment before going dull and lifeless again as he apparently came to the conclusion that Kyle wasn’t a threat. 

“Uh Jason, could I talk to you in the living room for a second?” Kyle managed to croak out. The Winter Soldier’s eyes were the only thing that moved as they followed the pair out of the kitchen to the living room.

“Is that who I think it is?” Kyle hissed.

“He was just sitting in this abandoned apartment complex in the Narrows. I guess it used to be a Hydra safehouse or something. What was I supposed to do? Leave him there?” 

“So you brought him here?!”

“Where else was I supposed to take him?”

“The police? The Avengers? The Justice League? Hell, what about Bruce?” Kyle ticked each option off on his fingers as he listed them. “A hospital? The Fortress of Solitude? The FBI? Interpol?”

Jason shook his head. “You and I both know that all of those people would, at best, put him in some sort of institution for the rest of his life or, at worst, haul him in front of a judge and lock him up for the rest of time. Hell, they might just kill him to avoid the shitshow of a trial.” Jason gestured towards the Soldier. “Does he look like someone who can speak in his own defence right now?”

Kyle had to admit that the Soldier did look a little pathetic sitting still and silent in the wooden dining room chair. He certainly didn’t look like the man who had beaten Captain America half to death or who had worked with a massive terrorist organization to bring down the United States government. He looked like he had been through seven different kinds of hell in the past six months. His clothes were dirty, and his hair was lank. The guy looked like he hadn’t had a decent meal in weeks and a bath in even longer. Kyle didn’t want to acknowledge it, but his first thought had been that the Soldier looked a lot like Jason had when Kyle had first found him. The Soldier had the same lost, dull-eyed and disinterested expression on his face, and the stillness with which he held his body spoke of both deep seated fear and confusion.

“Ok,” Kyle said with a nod. “I admit that he needs help more than he needs a jail cell, but what are we supposed to do with him?”

“Well,” Jason said slowly. “You helped me back when I needed it, so you can help him, right?”

“Jason, all I did was remind you that you were alive.” Kyle protested. “I don’t even know where to begin with him. If Captain America is to be believed then he has been held captive and tortured by a terrorist organization for over seventy years. Hell, some reports say he was brainwashed. I don’t know how to deal with that sort of thing! This is too big, Jason.”

Jason sighed and took Kyle’s hand. “Listen Kyle, I-I want to help him. Imagine what would have happened to me if you hadn't found me. What if some sketchy organization had found me first? Hell, what if Hydra had found me? In another universe that could be me.” Jason gestured towards the Soldier as he spoke. Both he and Kyle had given up any pretense of whispering. “Imagine if it were me running around killing people like that.”

“You do run around and kill people, Jason.”

“Yeah, people who deserve it! I choose to do that. I choose to kill them. Imagine if I couldn’t make that choice though. Imagine if someone was forcing me to kill people that they thought were bad.” 

Kyle didn’t have an argument for that. Jason hated to talk about the time right after his resurrection when he had been walking around Gotham still half certain that he was dead. If Jason was willingly bringing up his resurrection then he must be serious about helping the Soldier. Kyle scrubbed his hands over his face and sighed. “Yeah, ok. I’ll take a look, but I’m not promising anything.” Kyle smiled suddenly and let out a little laugh.

“What?” Jason asked, eyes narrowing a little in suspicion.

“Nothing,” Kyle said, though he was still smiling. “I just had the thought that all of you Bats seem to have a penchant for adopting strays.”

Jason swatted Kyle on the ass with his free hand and tugged him close to his chest. “Thank you,” he whispered. Kyle patted Jason on the chest in silent acknowledgment of his thanks before pulling away. 

Jason let go of Kyle’s hand as they went back into the kitchen. Like before, only the Soldier’s eyes moved to track their progress. Kyle pulled another chair from the kitchen table to sit opposite the Soldier while Jason lent against the counter.

“Куратор?” The Soldier’s voice was barely more than a whisper and hoarse with disuse. 

Kyle frowned. “What did he say?”

“It’s Russian,” Jason replied. “I’m pretty sure it means ‘handler.’ Or ‘curator.’”

“Like an undercover handler? An animal handler?”

Jason spread his hands and shrugged before crossing his arms over his chest and adopting a stance of practiced nonchalance, though Kyle knew that if the Soldier so much as twitched in a way that Jason didn’t like, his boyfriend would be on the Soldier in the blink of an eye. 

“Uh, ok.” Kyle cleared his throat and turned his attention back on the Soldier. “Do you — ah — do you know where you are?”

“N'yu-Dzhersi,” the Soldier said in that same barely there rasp of a voice, though Kyle thought he saw the Soldier’s face twitch for an instant into an expression of disgust.

“What?”

“Russian again,” Jason said. “He’s only spoken Russian since I found him. He said ‘New Jersey.’ I can translate if you want.”

“Nah,” Kyle said, stretching his right arm in the direction of the stairs. “I’ll just use my Ring.”

A couple of seconds later a streak of white light, accompanied by a humming sound zipped down the stairs and into Kyle’s waiting hand. The events of the next few seconds happened so quickly that Kyle was almost unable to track it. Just as he closed his fist on the ring, the Winter Soldier reached out and closed his metal hand around Kyle’s wrist, and Jason appeared at the Soldier’s side, his gun pressing against the Soldier’s temple. “Let him go,” Jason snarled, the ring of green around his irises sparking brighter. 

No one moved. The silence in the kitchen was almost oppressive. If anything, the Winter Soldier’s grip on Kyle grew tighter, and those grey eyes never left Kyle’s face. Jason cocked his gun and pressed it harder against the Soldier’s head. “ I said ‘let him go.”

“Jason, stop,” Kyle raised his left hand in a placating gesture. “It’s ok, just put the gun down.”

Jason’s eyes snapped to Kyle’s face for an instant before refocusing on the Soldier, and his grip on the gun tightened. Obviously if Kyle was going to diffuse the situation, he would have to do it without Jason’s help. 

“Look,” Kyle said to the Soldier. He gently tugged his arm back towards his chest, and the Soldier let him do it, though he didn’t let go of Kyle’s wrist. Kyle dropped the Ring into his free hand and held it up to the Soldier. “It’s just a ring,” he said. “It’s not going to hurt you. I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to help you.”

The Winter Soldier stared at the Ring with the same intensity that had been present when he first looked at Kyle. Kyle stayed still as the soldier examined the Ring, and Jason’s gaze tracked the Soldier so closely that he might as well have been lining up a sniper shot. Apparently finding nothing immediately dangerous about the Ring, the Soldier slowly let go of Kyle’s wrist, and his metal arm returned to hanging limply at his side. Kyle met Jason’s eyes and nodded slightly. Jason frowned as he put the safety back on his gun, tucked it back into his thigh holster, and moved back to his position against the counters behind Kyle, so Kyle knew he wasn’t happy about putting the weapon away, but if Kyle was going to help Bucky all three of them needed to be calm. Guns, in Kyle’s experience, weren’t conductive to a calm atmosphere.

There were red marks around Kyle’s wrist that he was sure were going to bruise, and he rubbed at them idly as he slipped the thick, white Ring onto his the middle finger of his right hand. A barely visible glow wrapped around him and he allowed himself to relax a fraction as the familiar warmth spread over him. “Ok,” he said. “Now we can get somewhere. You know you’re in New Jersey. Do you know who you are?”

For the first time since Kyle had seen him, emotion flickered across the Soldier’s face. His eyes darted to the side and he curled in on himself as though expecting to be hit. His mouth pulled into a tight line and, if possible, his voice was even quieter when he spoke. “The man on the bridge...he said my name was James.”

“Ok,” Kyle said, noticing the way that the Soldier — James — visibly relaxed when Kyle didn’t react negatively to what he said. “Is that what you want us to call you? James?”

The Soldier shook his head. “Bucky,” he said. “My name is Bucky. I think.”

Kyle heard Jason stiffen behind him, and he blinked in surprise himself. “Bucky?” Kyle asked. “As in Bucky Barnes? Captain America’s best friend?”

Bucky flinched as Kyle said the words ‘Captain America,’ and Kyle quickly put out a hand to quiet him.

“No wonder Cap’s been so eager to prove his innocence,” Jason muttered.

Kyle hummed in vague agreement and cast a critical eye over the Soldier — Bucky, he said he wanted to be called Bucky. It had been a while since Kyle read a book about World War II, but from what he remembered he could see the similarities between Cap’s best friend and the man sitting in front of him. They had the same jawline, though the Soldier’s was missing the softness that came with youth. Their noses were the same shape, and their eyes were the same, though the Soldier’s were darker and, if Kyle were to let his more artistic side out for a moment, he’d say they were more haunted. If Cap’s best friend Bucky were aged up a couple of years and packed on something like thirty pounds of muscle and had his left arm replaced with a metal one, then Kyle could definitely see the Soldier and Bucky as being the same person. 

“Ok, Bucky,” Kyle said slowly. “If you really are Sergeant Barnes-”

“James Buchanan, 32557038.”

Bucky’s voice was monotone, and his face was blank. It was as though he didn’t realize he was saying it or, if he did know what he was saying, it didn’t mean anything to him. Kyle glanced back at Jason who shrugged helplessly. 

“Bucky,” Kyle said gently. “The news has been saying that you were kept in cryo-stasis. Is that true?”

Bucky nodded once. “Am I going back under?”

“No, no,” Kyle said quickly. “Never again. You’ll never have to go under again.” Kyle blinked at the surge of protectiveness that had rushed through him at the look on Bucky’s face, and he could feel Jason’s eyes burning holes in the back of his head. “Bucky, do you know who that is?” Kyle asked, pointing at Jason.

Bucky’s eyes darted over Kyle’s shoulder to look at Jason. “Red Hood. Formally known as Robin. Beaten to death by The Joker in Ethiopia. Returned to life during the Blackest Night Event.”

“That just about covers it,” Jason said.

“And me?”

Bucky turned those grey eyes back on Kyle. “The White Lantern. Formally known as the Green Lantern. Formally host to the Parallax Entity. Formally host to the Ion entity.”

“Uh, yeah, that’s me. I’m Kyle, and that’s Jason. We want to help you, if we can.” Bucky remained silent, staring at Kyle as though awaiting orders. “Are you hurt?”

“Pain is not important,” Bucky said. It sounded like a rehearsed response.

“That’s not what I asked you, Bucky. I asked if you’re hurt.”

“Pain is not important.”

“No, Bucky, I need to know-”

“Are you damaged, soldier?” Jason interrupted.

Kyle turned a reproachful gaze on Jason and opened his mouth to rebuke him, but Bucky spoke first.

“The Asset has sustained damage to the ribs, left arm, and right leg.”

“Let me see,” Kyle said, though his gaze didn’t leave Jason’s face. 

Jason’s hand wrapped around the handle of his gun as Bucky stood up and started undoing the straps of his kevlar vest and the laces of his combat boots. Bucky’s movements were steady and fast, and he didn’t waste time on any kind of modesty. His body armor hit the kitchen floor with a thump, and the various weapons followed until Bucky stood in Jason and Kyle’s kitchen in nothing but his boxers. There was mottled black and purple bruising up the left side of his ribs that Kyle suspected meant that he had cracked or even broken ribs, and Kyle could see bent plates in his left arm that kept the arm stiff and unwieldy. There was a gash down his right thigh that had already scabbed over, but Kyle suspected it was infected given the swollen skin around the scab. 

Jason let out a low whistle. “Damn Bucky, you look like B after a fight with Bane.”

Bucky didn’t say anything, but Kyle could see confusion in his eyes. “Bucky, do you know what I can do?”

“The White Lantern is among the most powerful beings in this universe.” Bucky’s voice was monotone again, like it had been when he was describing Kyle and Jason’s lives or reciting his serial number, as though he were giving a field report. “As a master of all of the colors on the Emotional Electromagnetic Spectrum, the White Lantern can, conceivably, perform any task available to any member of any other Lantern Corps.”

“Such as?”

“The creation of hard light constructs, the expulsion of acidic blood, the identification of a subject’s greatest fears, the absorption of defeated individual’s souls, teleportation, crystal generation, resurrection, reanimation, healing-”

“There, stop, Bucky,” Kyle interrupted. “Healing. I can use my ring to heal wounds, make people feel better, right?”

Bucky nodded.

“I want to heal you. Will you let me?”

Bucky nodded again.

Kyle closed his eyes. The Blue Light was always the toughest to use, and there were times when he couldn’t manage it at all. Sometimes finding something to be hopeful about was just too damn hard; however, it had gotten a little easier ever since he and Jason started dating. There were still tough days, but Kyle rarely felt like the Blue Light was impossible to reach anymore. He allowed himself to think back to some of the happiest times with Jason: the bar fight in Andromeda, the picnic on Mogo, and the time they had teamed up with Hal to prank Bruce at the last charity gala. Thinking about the past he had with Jason never failed to make Kyle hopeful for the future. When Kyle opened his eyes again he was surrounded by a blue glow, and the spark of intense analysis was back in Bucky’s eyes. Kyle maintained eye contact with Bucky as he stood up and took crossed the tiny distance between them to put him right in Bucky’s personal space. With the Winter Soldier standing at his full height Kyle could tell that Bucky was several inches taller than him. He felt more than heard or saw Jason shift into a more defensive stance and knew that he would have his hands on his weapons. Kyle reached out to touch Bucky’s ribs. Bucky flinched away from his touch, and Kyle looked up at him, having to crane his neck back to look into his eyes due to how close they were.

“Don’t worry,” Kyle murmured. “This won’t hurt.”

True to his word, Kyle made sure that the only thing Bucky felt was warmth as he pressed his hand to the bruising. He felt bones shift and slide back into place under the skin, confirming Kyle’s suspicions about cracked or broken ribs, and as he watched the bruising faded until there was no sign the injury had ever been there. Kyle met Bucky’s gaze again as he sank to one knee to attend to the cut on Bucky’s thigh. The muscle twitched away from him as his fingers brushed the scab apparently as an involuntary reaction. The skin around the cut was hot to the touch, which would seem to confirm Kyle’s thought that it was infected. 

“I’m afraid I can’t do anything about your arm without knowing how it’s supposed to work,” Kyle said as he wrapped his hands around Bucky’s thigh. “Unless you have blueprints I can look at, we’ll have to find someone else to fix your arm.”

“No blueprints,” Bucky croaked out.

Kyle nodded as he stood up and dusted his hands off, the cut having been reduced to no more than a thin scar. “I figured as much. When was the last time you slept?”

Bucky opened his mouth to respond then closed it, thought for a moment, and opened it again only to repeat the process several times. He looked so hopelessly confused that Kyle couldn’t suppress the pang of sympathy that shot through his chest. 

“Well, if you can’t remember, then it’s been too long. Why don’t you go get some sleep while Jason and I figure out what to do about your arm.” Bucky didn’t move, and when Kyle looked closely he could see that Bucky was shaking. “What’s wrong Bucky?”

“You said I wouldn’t be going back to cryo.”

“You’re not, Bucky.” Kyle reached down and took Bucky’s left hand in his right, hanging on tighter when Bucky tried to pull away. “Come with me, I’ll show you.”  
Kyle gently led Bucky up the stairs to the guest bedroom across the hall from his and Jason’s. Jason followed behind the pair and stopped off in the master bedroom to collect a pair of pajama pants. Kyle was explaining that there was a bathroom located down the hall when he joined the other two in the guest bedroom. 

“Here,” Jason held the pajama pants out to Bucky who stared at them for a few second before taking them. “Put them on,” Jason said when Bucky made no move to do so. Bucky still didn’t move to put the pants on, instead looking to Kyle with the same helpless expression he had had downstairs. 

Kyle nodded. “Put the pants on. Get some sleep, and we’ll figure out what to do next in the morning.” 

Bucky finally shook the pants out and stepped into them. Kyle and Jason left the room and returned to the kitchen after they were satisfied that Bucky was going to get into the bed. Kyle sat down heavily at the kitchen table. “This is serious stuff, Jason,” he said. “That stuff he said about you and me. How did he know all that stuff?”

Jason turned on the coffee maker before sitting down at the table across from Kyle. Neither of them were going to be sleeping for the rest of the night. “Well Hydra was embedded in Shield, right? Their information network must have been huge.”

“Yeah, but how many people knew that you were Robin? How many people know that you came back to life during the Blackest Night? I don’t think the fact that the Joker beat you to death in Ethiopia was in any Shield database, let alone the fact that I was Ion and Parallax.”

Both Jason and Kyle were silent for a moment. Though the Lanterns were public figures, many aspects of their lives were unknown, even to others in the caped community. Because most of the Lanterns’ missions took place in space they could go through drastic changes, like being possessed by the physical embodiments of emotions, without Earth’s population ever knowing. This also meant that, even though members of every color Corps had been on Earth during the Blackest Night, the poor quality of the news footage meant that a lot of people didn’t realize that Lanterns came in colors other than Green and White, so the fact that different Corps had different powers wasn’t readily available information to those outside of the Caped Community. 

Sure, the entire world had seen Kyle-as-Parallax tearing up New York through shaky news footage, but no one except the craziest conspiracy theorists had even begun to link the White Lantern with the thing that had torn up New York. If the Winter Soldier knew about Kyle’s past as Parallax and Ion and his secret identity, then so did Hydra, and the only way Hydra could have known all that about Kyle would be if they had access to some inside information. Which meant they probably had spies not only in the Caped Community but also in the Lantern Corps. 

Neither Kyle nor Jason voiced their thoughts, but each knew that the other was thinking the same thing. Kyle swallowed and drummed his fingers against the wood of the table, suddenly desperate for a pencil with which to fidget. If Hydra had agents in the Lantern Corps then they were working probably working with Sinestro. A team-up between Hydra and Sinestro was terrifying. Kyle cleared his throat, “We need to call someone about his arm.”

“Alright,” Jason agreed. “Who?”

Jason had a point. Who had the expertise needed to fix Bucky’s arm and could also be trusted to keep secret the fact that the most wanted man in world was sleeping in Kyle and Jason’s spare bedroom? “Tim?” Kyle suggested. “He’s good at keeping secrets and computer stuff.”

Jason was shaking his head before Kyle even finished his suggestion. “Nah, Tim’s too close to B. We don’t need the Bats snooping around more than they usually do. What about Roy?”

“Roy can’t keep a secret to save his life and you know it,” Kyle said. “Besides it’s not just the machine we have to worry about. It’s connected to him. It’s a part of him.”

“So, Cyborg?”

Kyle blinked. He hadn’t even considered Cyborg as an option but, now that Jason had raised the possibility, he was the obvious solution. “He’d be perfect. Do you think we can trust him?”

Jason shrugged, “Dick does. We can’t ask someone outside of the cape community. Aside from the fact that no one outside of the community would know about this stuff, capes are the only ones we can even begin to trust with something like this. They might be annoying as fuck, but at least they protect their own most of the time.”

Kyle nodded. “Alright, I’ll head up to New York tomorrow and ask him to come take a look. I need to do some sort of brain scan on Bucky tomorrow too, though I don’t know what I’m supposed to do after that. He’s obviously had some serious conditioning and been through extreme torture. How do we even begin to fix that? How am I supposed to know what to look for? Hell, I don’t know what a normal brain is supposed to look like, let alone what to look for in his.”

Jason got up to pour both of them cups of coffee. “Could you take the scan to someone? A brain doctor or something? What about that guy in New York? He’s got a freaky name. Dr. Weird? Odd? He’s like Dr. Fate but shitty?”

Kyle stared at Jason. “You mean Dr. Strange?”

Jason snapped his fingers and put the coffee pot back on the warmer. “Strange, exactly!”

“I dunno Jason,” Kyle said as his boyfriend pulled the half-and-half out of the fridge. “Aren’t we running the risk of making the circle too big? The more people who know we have him, the greater the chance of someone spilling the beans.”

“So don’t tell him it’s Bucky’s,” Jason shrugged and put a mug of coffee in front of Kyle. Kyle noticed that Jason had used the mugs that Connor Hawke had bought him for his last birthday, and he smiled when he saw that Jason had given him the one that had ‘Paint Water’ printed on it, while Jason was drinking out of the one labeled ‘Not Paint Water.’

“So what,” Kyle took a sip of coffee. Jason had used the hazelnut half-and-half he knew Kyle liked. “I tell him that it’s some other person who’s undergone years of conditioning and torture?”

“Well with all these Hydra fucks coming out of the woodwork, you never know. You’re going up to New York anyway, what can it hurt to stop in and ask? If he gets too nosy you can always just leave.”

Kyle couldn’t argue with that kind of logic. “Alright,” he said. “I’ll take a scan of his brain when he wakes up and head to New York when the rest of the world wakes up.” He watched Jason’s throat work as his boyfriend drained the last of his coffee. “You should get changed. I’ll stay down here in case one of your brothers decides to visit us before the sun comes up.” 

Jason nodded, stood up, and put his coffee cup in the sink. He collected his helmet from where it was sitting on the counter and walked over to Kyle. “Hey,” he said, wrapping an arm around Kyle’s shoulders and pulling his boyfriend against his hip. “It’s gonna be alright.”

Kyle’s smile was more like a grimace, but he pressed his face against Jason’s hipbone all the same. “Only if we make it ok.”

Jason bent down and pressed a kiss to the top of Kyle’s head. “Good thing that’s what you’re the best at then, isn’t it?”

* * *

While Jason was upstairs stripping off his Red Hod uniform and taking a shower, Kyle set about tidying up the kitchen. Bucky’s Winter Soldier outfit and weapons were still scattered across the floor, and Kyle hadn’t bothered to wash the dishes from dinner before Jason had left to patrol. When Kyle picked up Bucky’s clothes the smell of stale sweat was almost overwhelming, and he set them on the table to be moved to the laundry when Kyle got the chance. He was just straightening up from collecting the last of the knives off the kitchen floor, when he glanced at the doorway the separated the kitchen from the living room and caught a glimpse of a figure standing there out of the corner of his eye. 

Kyle let out a shout and felt his ring activate a protective forcefield as he fell back against the kitchen wall. Bucky didn’t react to Kyle’s shout, staring at him in what Kyle might have called bemusement from where he was standing in the doorway. 

There were two thumps from the upstairs hallway, and Jason landed in a crouch behind Bucky at the foot of the stairs. He was wearing nothing but a pair of green boxers that some part of Kyle identified as belonging to him, which meant that the boxers Kyle was wearing were Jason’s, and one sock. His gun was pointed at Bucky who had turned to regard Jason with the same sort of bored interest with which the cat the lived next door regarded Kyle whenever he walked past. “Kyle?”

“I’m ok!” Kyle said quickly, scrambling to his feet before Jason could do anything drastic. “It’s ok! He just moves so quietly I didn’t hear him come down the stairs,” Kyle stopped suddenly. “Did-did you jump from the top of the stairs?”

Jason straightened up. “Yeah? Why?”

“Nothing,” Kyle said. “Nothing, it’s just, uh, really hot.”

Jason smirked and shoved his gun into the waistband of his boxers. “Oh yeah?” There was a definite swagger to his hips as Jason walked over to Kyle. Bucky’s head turned as he tracked Jason’s movement. “Well maybe I could give you a close up view of-“

“Bucky, I thought you were going to bed?” Kyle interrupted before Jason could finish his suggestion. Kyle could feel the tips of his ears burning and did his best to will away any blush that might have risen to his cheeks.

“Don’t know,” Bucky said.

Jason turned back to him and cocked an eyebrow. “What don’t you know?”

“Don’t know how.”

“You don’t know how to sleep?” Jason bent down and stripped off his one sock, so they were just three shirtless guys standing in a kitchen at four in the morning. Yeah, Kyle thought, nothing weird about that.

“What do you mean you don’t know how to sleep? It’s been six months since Washington you have to have at least napped since then.”

Bucky spread his hands in a gesture of confusion, and Kyle could see the jerky way the fingers of his left hand moved. 

“Maybe none of his Winter Soldier missions lasted long enough that he’d need sleep?” Jason wondered. “Maybe they’d be done with him and he’d be back in cryo before he needed to sleep?”

Kyle leveled a look at Jason, “You’re trying to tell me that he hasn’t slept in over seventy years?”

“Look, Rayner, I don’t hear you coming up with any ideas.”

Kyle held his hands up in surrender and turned back to Bucky. “Are you tired?”

Bucky stared blankly at Kyle and didn’t say anything.

“Are you,” Kyle cast about for the right words for a second before remembering how Jason had gotten Bucky to admit he was wounded. “Are you operating at peak efficiency?”

This time Bucky’s silence was more thoughtful than confused. “No,” he concluded. “The Asset’s reaction times are down three point five percent, and The Asset is unable to focus for an adequate period of time.”

“You’re exhausted,” Kyle said. “So exhausted that you can’t sleep.” Jason had been the same way when Kyle first found him, desperate for sleep yet unable to rest. In Jason’s case, creating an atmosphere of safety had helped him find the rest he needed, and part of that had been Kyle staying in the room with him to keep watch through the night. In return, Jason did the same whenever Kyle caught a nap during the day. Obviously Bucky knew what sleep was; he just needed a little help getting to sleep.

Kyle took hold of Bucky’s left hand again and pulled him back towards the stairs. Despite the fact that Bucky could have easily resisted Kyle’s urging, he followed Kyle back upstairs without any argument.

When Kyle walked into the guest bedroom he found his suspicions about Bucky not feeling safe enough to sleep confirmed. All of the blankets and pillows had been stripped from the bed and piled into something like a nest in the corner of the room furthest from the door, the most defensible position in the room. Kyle let got of Bucky’s hand and piled the pillows back on the head of the bed. “Come lie down here, Bucky,” Kyle said, patting at the mattress.

Bucky approached the bed and sat down as though he expected to be yelled at any second. When he lay down he was stiff, and he craned his neck so he could track Kyle’s movement around the room. Kyle untangled a blanket from Bucky’s nest and tossed it over him. “I want you to close your eyes and do your best to relax. I’m going to sit in that chair,” Kyle gestured to the armchair in the corner opposite the door. “I’ll keep you safe.”

Bucky’s eyes darted to the open door at the same instant that Kyle heard Jason brush against the doorframe. The noise had been deliberate. Kyle knew that, had he wanted, Jason could move as silently as Bucky had earlier. However, startling Kyle was one thing, startling an assassin who had spent the past six months on the run and was probably armed with at least one gun even dressed as he was in a pair of borrowed pajama pants was probably some kind of death wish.

“Hey,” Jason said softly. “You gonna stay with him?” Kyle’s coffee mug was in his hand.

“Yeah,” Kyle took his coffee from his boyfriend. “It helped you, so maybe it will help him. I might not know how to heal brain trauma, but at least I can do this.”

Jason nodded and ruffled Kyle’s already messy hair. “Neither of us deserve you,” he whispered. “Give me a shout if you need anything.”

Kyle shut the door as Jason headed back down the stairs. He heard the door to the basement open and knew that Jason was going to try to help Bucky in the way that he knew best, by digging up every piece of information on Hydra he could get his hands on. “Do you want the light on or off?” 

Predictably, Bucky didn’t answer, so Kyle left them on and took his seat.

* * *

Jason sat back in his chair and ground the heels of his palms into his eyes. He’d only been researching for — he glanced at the clock — two hours, but he already had a headache from the eye searing fonts and layouts of early 2000s Geocities sites, and his thoughts were spinning from the number of conspiracy theories surrounding the Winter Soldier. More than one theory linked Bucky with some of the biggest tragedies of the last sixty years. The Kennedy assassination, the Oklahoma City Bombing, both World Trade Center attacks, the MLK assassination, hell even the spraying of DDT had been linked to Bucky by some basement dwelling conspiracy theorist. Of course there were the usual suspects, people claiming that Hydra was the military branch of the Illuminati and linking Bucky to the supposed New World Order or proving that he was some sort of lizard man in disguise. One of the crazier theories that Jason had come across claimed that Bucky was, in fact, the Mothman from West Virginia.

Most of that stuff was bullshit. If Jason wanted the cold, hard facts of Bucky’s life he’d have to hack into the military files and sift through everything that had been dumped on the internet in the aftermath of the incident in DC. Neither of those things were difficult to do when you had Bat hardware backing you up, but it wasn’t something Jason particularly wanted to do at six in the morning with no sleep. Jason picked up his coffee cup, took a sip, and immediately opened his mouth to let it fall back into the cup when he realized how cold it was. He stuck his tongue out and scraped his teeth along it to get the taste out of his mouth as he thought.

Kyle was right when he said that Bucky’s problems were bigger than either of them could handle on their own, and Jason knew that they’d have to involve some sort of higher authority at some point, whether that authority be the Justice League, the rest of the Bats, or the Avengers. But, for now, Bucky’s most immediate needs weren’t lawyers or therapists. No, what Bucky needed the most right now was rest, food, and water, and Jason and Kyle were more than able to supply that. Truth be told, Jason had brought Bucky to Kyle mostly because he had panicked when he saw the assassin sitting on the dirty floor of the abandoned building, and it hadn’t been until he had seen Bucky sitting in his kitchen that he had stopped to think about what he had done. The man was so suggestible that it scared Jason a little. Jason could have taken Bucky anywhere, and he wouldn't have fought back as long as Jason’s voice was authoritative enough. If Jason had been working for Hydra or some other shady organization Bucky could have been back on the streets assassinating people by now.

Truth be told, Jason wasn’t sure if Kyle could help Bucky, but what other option did he have? He knew that the fact that Kyle had been able to pull Jason out of his own head didn’t mean that he’d be able to help Bucky in the same way. Then there was the issue of attachment. If Kyle couldn’t help Bucky they’d have to send him to someone who could, and Kyle already seemed to be forming some kind of protective attachment to Bucky. It didn’t help that Bucky was stupid attractive, and seeing Kyle on his knees on front of him made Jason hot all over.

Jason frowned. Where had that thought come from?

They would take care of Bucky as best they could. They could feed him and keep him safe from those who wished him harm, anything beyond that might be out of their reach, but Jason figured they could face those troubles when they got to them. He would treat this like any other vigilante mission and take it one day at a time.

**Author's Note:**

> I told you I was working on a getting together fic. 
> 
> This is the first thing I’ve written for this site with an actual plot....so uh here goes nothing I guess. 
> 
> (I promise there will be smut later in the work. I promise.)


End file.
